Japanese Box Art – Comedies Part 1

Let’s take a look at the box art used for subtitled versions of American comedy movies over in Japan.

Army of Darkness (Captain Supermarket)

As noted before, Army of Darkness was released as Captain Supermarket in Japan. Mato guesses it’s because while it looks like a horror movie on the surface, it’s definitely a comedy at its core. To release it in Japan as “Army of Darkness” would make it seem like a generic horror movie that nobody would pay attention to.

You can see by the artwork that they really ran with the “comedy” theme. The front cover kind of looks a little like a comic book setup.

Ernest Goes to Camp

I was surprised and extremely happy to learn that Ernest Goes to Camp, one of Poemato’s favorite movies, was released in Japan. It’s an 80s camp movie where an accident-prone janitor-turned-camp-counselor is put in charge of reforming a group of delinquents, while also trying to save the camp from being taken over by an evil mining company.

This box is simply covered with screenshots from the movie, which is an interesting approach. I like how the biggest image on the front is of the two cooks shoving a disgusting dish into Ernest’s mouth. And on the back cover I spot… a scene that never happened in the movie?! Or at least it wasn’t in the version I grew up with. I don’t remember anyone wearing a big ol’ fuzzy moose head.

Super Mario Bros. Movie

Ehhhhh, this movie. Had to get it.

The cover art looks really good, but what the hell is up with that giant disintegrating Koopa head on the back? Wouldn’t that scare kids rather than make them want to watch it? Oh, hmm… Maybe that was the plan all along!

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A lot is always going on behind the scenes of our Legends of Localization projects. Here, we’ll share some inside looks at what we’re up to and share cool photos + info of our research materials, most of which never gets seen in our main articles & books!